


Reflection

by RedRidingHood



Category: Person of Interest (TV)
Genre: F/F, Post Samaritan/Finding Shaw
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-23
Updated: 2015-08-23
Packaged: 2018-04-16 19:19:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,779
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4637148
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RedRidingHood/pseuds/RedRidingHood
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Inside the mirror was a frail woman of broken skin and feeble muscles. She had dark circles on her eyes, and too long hair; she needed help to move, and to change, and to bathe. She was hopeless.</p><p>The reflection lied. Its body was nothing like her own.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Reflection

**Author's Note:**

> Based on the idea that Sarah Shahi really wants Shaw to cut off all of her hair.

The woman in the glass stared at her through dead eyes, mimicking her every move with painful lethargy and marred flesh. Slow, broken movements of shaky limbs, and a frail frame wrapped in glaringly white bandages and draped in an ill-fitting hospital gown.

This wasn’t her.

She clutched at the porcelain sink and stared, determined to force away the image of the broken woman; to morph it into what was real, and true. She was strong yet this reflection was weak. This wasn’t her. It couldn’t be.

Her legs wobbled beneath her and she watched as her counterpart gritted its teeth and clung to the sink, digging in its nails until its knuckles turned white. Her reflection couldn’t stand alone, her reflection was broken.

In the mirror the reflection stood, in agony, with dark matted hair pulled carelessly against the nape of its neck. Its skin was pale and lifeless, clinging to bones like a corpse. This wasn’t her. It, _this woman_ , was a mere ghost of who she was.

The reflection began to sob, and its tears spattered onto the white ceramic by her very real, hands. She jolted back.

She wasn’t crying. _It_ was crying.

She didn’t cry.

At the sudden movement, her legs gave out beneath her, and she found herself on the cold tile floor, glaring disdainfully at her legs sprawled out against the sterile whiteness; all awkward angles and dark bruises. They were weak, useless. She dug her fingernails into the skin of her thigh and clenched her jaw, squeezing her eyes shut. They were weak. Her body was weak.

The nurse found her tear-stained, with dark crescents across her skin and her head resigned against the back of the wall.

The men in blue put her back into bed.

-

_“Do you think you’d be up for visitors this week?”_

_“No.”_

_“I know a long list of people who’ve been stopping by to see you.”_

_“You won’t even see one?”_

_“No.”_

_-_

“You shouldn’t get up. Your body still needs time to heal.”

There were seven members of staff of whom she saw almost every day; two specialists, three doctors, and four nurses. Each of them would repeat the same mantra, over, and over, every time they came to see her.

“I’m fine.”

Most of the staff would smile, persuade her back into her bed, and tell her she’d soon be able to try and walk properly- so long as she had some time to rest and heal. However the older nurse- a no-nonsense woman with thirty years of experience, short red hair, and a stout figure- would always push her back into bed with three words; _‘No, you’re not.’_

She was torn between liking this woman, and hating her.

The rest of the nurses were younger; they had soft hands and pet-names that Shaw couldn’t stand. One had –once- called her sweetie, and she had instantly snapped. _My name is Shaw- well, Grey here._

Darling, dear, dearie, hell, even poor thing. She could hear them;  she could even suffer them without –too much- complaint. But Sweetie? _Sweetie_ hurt more than the origins of the bruises that covered most of her skin. _Sweetie_ hit harder than the withdrawal from the drugs that Samaritan had reared her on. _Sweetie_ hurt.

She knew they were visiting, Finch, Reese, Fusco. Root.

They left her gifts that were brought by the nurses who tried to convince her to let them in, but like the gifts, the suggestions were scrapped. She couldn’t see them. Any of them.

Not like this.

-

The mirror became a foe and she avoided it as much as she could.

Inside the mirror was a frail woman of broken skin and feeble muscles. She had dark circles on her eyes, and too long hair; she needed help to move, and to change, and to bathe. She was hopeless.

The reflection lied. Its body was nothing like her own.

She was strong. Powerful.

She could take down the entire floor security without breaking a sweat, she could wield a weapon as though it was part of herself; she was a trained assassin and a damn good one at that.

When the nurses, Katy- a twenty year old student who was terrified of Shaw- and Ethel- the red-headed woman who Shaw had quickly decided she didn’t like after all- took her into the bathroom to wash, she always kept her back to the mirror. She would stare at the cracked paint of the ceiling, the tile on the wall, or the floor, but she would avoid any eye-contact with _it_ (or the two women man-handling her, unnecessarily, in and out of the shower).

They would attempt to get her to look into the glass; asking her what she thought of the hair they’d braided for her- she hated it- or if she thought her bruising was going away –unlikely- but she would refuse, indignantly. She would brush her teeth facing the wall or staring at her feet, she washed her hands with intense concentration on the basin and the running water. Anything that meant she didn’t have to look at _it._

-

_“Wanna see how you look?”_

_“No.”_

_-_

It took a month before she could walk freely around her room. Or rather, it took a month before they allowed her to walk freely around her room. She could have done it before, she knew she could have, but they didn’t believe her. To her, it wasn’t something to be questioned; she had walked since infancy, it wasn’t hard. But the doctors didn’t believe her, or the nurses, they questioned it, and her body would deceive her mind, listening to the doctors and their needless doubt.

But now she could walk; slow, steady steps, only grasping at the wall sometimes.

She put it down to the enforced lack of use.

Walking alone meant she could use the little bathroom by herself, and thus meant that she could control the light.

It was much easier to ignore her deceitful reflection in the dark.

-

After a couple of weeks the doctor suggested she leave her room; walk down the corridor with one of the nurses to really stretch her legs. She had been eager the first time, itching to prove she could walk; desperate for a place outside the hospital room.

She had hated it.

People had stared, and her reflection had shuffled alongside her, drifting from window to window; wrong.

The reflection was frail. It was small, and weak, and wrong. It wasn’t her.

She didn’t leave her room after that.

-

Letters from Finch were regular; every Monday, with every second Monday including a letter from Reese or Fusco.

Letters from Root were sporadic; the Thursday, Saturday and Sunday of one week, the Tuesday of another, a week’s break before the influx of four in four days.

She didn’t read them, but she kept them. Hidden in the cupboard by her bed were four distinct piles, each categorised by the style of writing on the front. Her name in four different variations of font; their handwriting was the only connection she had to any of them other than the thoughts that ran rampant in her head.

Finch’s writing was neat, cursive and somewhat out-dated.

Fusco wrote in short, abrupt capitals, similar to Reese’ though also entirely different.

Root however wrote in swirls and loops like the hand of a teenage girl- though she could bend her handwriting to match her alias’- but these letters were different; there was something off about the loops and swirls, something melancholy.

Shaw could easily file away the boy’s, tossing them into their respective piles after a mere glance but every one of Root’s she toyed with. She thought long and hard about opening them, running her nail through the first millimetre of the seal. She wondered what Root would say, and she wondered what she would say in return.

-

_“You have someone you could stay with?”_

_“I… uh, yeah.”_

_“Mr Avocet?”_

_“…No.” The idea of staying with Finch was about as appealing as staying here for any longer._

_“Who?”_

_“Uh, can I borrow a phone?”_

_-_

Two months, and two weeks, then they let her leave with a folder full of ‘ _do’s and don’t’s’_ and contact numbers, and ‘ _next steps’._ She tossed it in her bag where the letters she never intended reading also lived.

Root was coming to get her, and she waited the twenty minutes with a tightness in her chest, gradually pacing the room that she couldn’t wait to leave. She didn’t know how to see Root again, what to do or what to say. In death, it had seemed easier. Kiss her. Save her. Simple.

In life? There could be no dramatic leave; no sudden moment of heroics.

She actually had to talk.

She had thrown her hair up in a careless pony-tail, which she fiddled with anxiously. The strands of hair that had once fell to her chin now played against her overly-prominent collarbone and she hated all of it. Finch had provided her clothes, things from her old wardrobe that she hadn’t seen in over a year. The shirt sagged and she remembered how it used to look; how it used to stretch over her breasts and be pulled taught against her body- she missed it, missed her figure, her body.

This was the body of her reflection, and it disgusted her.

“Look at you,” the blonde nurse beamed, stepping in through the door. _She’d rather not._

For a moment she had thought it was Root, and her heart had leapt into her chest. She wasn’t sure if the nurse- Carly, was a disappointment or not.

“Looking forward to going home?”

She didn’t have a home. Never had. The apartment she had stayed in before would have been long gone, a year and a half of her being missing and two months of her trapped in here. This hospital room was as close to home as she had now, and she couldn’t wait to leave.

She nodded.

“Who’s coming to get you?”

“A friend.”

Was Root a friend?

Had Root ever been a friend?

She’d hated her. Then she’d tolerated her. She’d admired her. Then she’d kissed her.

A friend?

-

_“Beth Bos?”_

_“What?”_

_“The friend you’re waiting on, she’s at the desk.”_

_-_

“Sameen?” Root’s face had lit up as soon as she came into view.

“Hey,” her voice was quiet, low. She avoided Root’s gaze, avoided thinking of how she looked, avoided the people staring at her.

They walked to the car in silence.

“I missed you.”

-

Root put her to bed as soon as they stepped through the door of the foreign apartment.

“You should rest.”

She wanted to protest, but she was too tired.

She slept for days.

-

They reached a comfortable stage of cohabitation. Root stayed, and watched over her, and she didn’t mind- much.

They slept next to one another and listened to the sounds of the other’s breath; safe in the knowledge that they were finally together, and alive. They took long baths together, immersed in scalding water and the feeling of the other’s skin. She relished in the way Root’s fingers would roll over her skin, kneading hard and soft, reminding her of what it meant to feel.

Though sometimes Root’s hands would run over a section of flesh and she would remember how it used to be, and she would jolt from Root’s touch. Every so often Root’s fingertips would dip into a hollow that wasn’t there before, or her hands would clasp at flesh that would once fill her palms. The disconnect between her sense of self, and her body was vast, and dark, and dangerous, and so she remained away from mirrors, and windows, and clear water.

Her body still wasn’t whole.

-

_“Are you okay?”_

_“I’m fine.”_

_“Are you sure?”_

_“Yes.”_

_-_

They were both intimate and not all at the same time.

They talked very little of before, and very little about the present. They didn’t analyse, they just followed instinct. Some days they would be more like colleagues than friends, some days, more like friends than lovers, then other times they would be lovers; skin to skin and scalding.

Root’s lips had been all over her body, but rarely on her lips. They had scaled up her thighs, and been pressed lovingly into her shoulder-blades, but almost never on her lips. Root had skilfully learned to avoid any parts of her body that would cause her distress; learning her body like the most complicated and time-sensitive puzzle ever to be written. For sometimes her body remembered how it used to be, muscled, and strong, and curved. So sometimes, she was okay.

But other times her body became skeletal, weak, and broken.

And she didn’t know which was real anymore.

Sometimes Root could make her feel real; make her feel like Shaw again, but there was always a moment afterwards when she was alone with her thoughts and they played tricks on her.

-

3am is a time of purgatory.

Either really good things happen, or really bad things, and it’s not up to you to decide.

Shaw woke up to Root lying asleep next to her. Her hair splayed out over the pillow, curtaining her face from the outside world. Her body was pressed up against Shaw’s, their bare skin almost melded together in the heat. Shaw watched her, watched the rise and fall of her chest and the bare-skin of her shoulder that peeked out from the blanket.

She dragged herself from the bed, missing the heat almost instantly, and pulled herself through into the bathroom.

The light flickered on, and she winced, her eyes adjusting to the harsh light hanging from the roof. She looked across the floor and up, over the walls. She looked at the window, and studied the small plastic flower on the windowsill. She looked everywhere except the mirror. She had gotten good at avoiding them.

Her eyes were still heavy with sleep and her limbs exhausted, but she forced herself to the sink and unwillingly stared into her reflection.

Weak.

She was weak, and pale, and ill.

Broken.

She wasn’t her anymore.

Her hair fell turbulently across her face, long and unruly. She pulled at it.

She grasped handfuls of the darkness and she tugged on them, feeling the sharp pain in her skull.

She couldn’t go back to being herself.

She pulled open the cabinet beneath the sink, her shaking hands raking for anything with a blade. Her fingers stumbled upon a pair of scissors rusting in a puddle of soap sludge and she took them forcefully into her hand, fumbling her fingers through the handles and gripping the metal instrument tightly.

For a moment she just stared into her reflection; the traitor.

“What are you doing?” Root questioned from the doorway. Her voice was laden with sleep and her eyes blinked heavily. Her body was draped in an old sweater and Shaw found herself staring at it; noting every pull of the woollen fabric in order to avoid looking back at the mirror.

“I don’t want this,” she replied quietly after a pause. She let the hand that clutched the scissors gesture to all of her with the blade, “I’m not this.”

“I know.”

Root took a step closer, and Shaw took a portion of her hair roughly into her free hand, anxious to slice it.

“You want help?” There was no questioning in Root’s voice; no asking why, or trying to convince her otherwise.

She held out the scissors weakly, and Root took them with a reassuring smile. She moved behind her, placing a warm hand on her waist and leaning in so that her chin was on her shoulder. Suddenly the reflection was standing with Root too, and instantly, a tiny ember of the disconnect she felt faded away.

“I’ve never done this before,” Root whispered, pulling away after a kiss to her cheek.

“I don’t care.”

The first cut was freeing. A flock of ravens flying from her shoulder to the floor, relieving some of the weight she had carried around for so long.

The sound of blades against the thousands of strands of her hair was exhilarating, breathing life into her chapped lips.

Bit by bit, the last decade of her life was chopped away, silently falling like confetti to her feet.

Her reflection stared back. Choppy hair. Solid jaw. Bright eyes. An admiring lover to her side.

It was the first time in months that she felt solidarity with her reflection. The first time she felt possessive of the face looking back.

She was strong. She was powerful. She was beautiful. She was alive.

She was Shaw.


End file.
